On the bench, Ranger defenseman Tom Poti’s spirit sank. The celebrating Senators had sliced up his psyche this Saturday night, and the Corel Centre scoreboard provided the only empirical evidence necessary.

Ottawa 9, Rangers 1.

“I remember how they ran up the score,” said Poti, whose pride, like the back that’s bothered him for the last month, remains a bit sore. “It wasn’t our best game. We obviously didn’t come together as a team like we wanted to. And they kept scoring and scoring.”

The Rangers don’t need the standings to spark them this afternoon. When the Senators hit the Garden ice at 1 p.m. for the teams’ first meeting since the Jan. 24 rout in Ottawa, the attitudes of everyone in blue will revolve around revenge.

“We were embarrassed up there,” winger Matthew Barnaby said. “We don’t need any special reason to play, because we need two points. But there’s a little extra motivation. We played horribly up there.”

The 9-1 loss is a chapter of the team’s second-half slump, a 3-10 stretch that has bumped the Rangers from the precipice of the playoffs to 11th in the Eastern Conference. They’ll begin this afternoon 10 points behind the eighth-place Islanders.

The loss in Ottawa ranks as the scariest single-game scar on the Rangers season, though Saturday’s 6-2 loss in Philadelphia may steal away some support.

That debacle included Jamie Lundmark’s first fight since juniors. The Ottawa mess featured Jussi Markkanen allowing four first-period goals, Hartford call-up Jason LaBarbera surrendering three in the second, then Markkanen returning to give up two in the third.

Few figured on such Corel craziness that night – in fact, most banked on the opposite. The Rangers welcomed Jaromir Jagr to their lineup but received no boost from him, mustering only a third-period Barnaby goal.

Jagr may be unavailable to aid his mates in today’s rematch. He spent yesterday working with the team’s training and conditioning staff to heal his sore groin, which kept him out of Saturday’s setback.

“It’s better,” Jagr said. “But I don’t know [about today].”

With or without their star, the Rangers need to improve the effort they gave 23 days ago in Canada. It’s their lone hope for flipping their season and raising their spirits with a push toward the postseason.

“Everybody in the locker room remembers the numbers, every goal they scored, every shift,” Poti said of the 9-1 drubbing. “We have to play with some confidence, get two points and get back at them.”